About the Author ...

"Brevity is the soul of wit," says Polonius, that ever-flowing font of outwardly "wise" sayings in Shakespeare's Hamlet -- but of course, Polonius is a hypocrite, a schemer, and one who rarely takes his own advice (especially this one). But there is one place where this rule certainly applies, and that's in the self-description you write to accompany your writing, and which may appear in a cover letter, a journal page, a book proposal, and (if said book comes to fruition) on a book's dust jacket.

So, as you work on your final project, I'd like each of you to write a brief -- a very brief -- account of yourself as an author. The convention is for these to be written in the third person (even though they're written by the authors themselves), and to focus on a few key things. You can say where you were born, where you grew up, where you've lived and/or what jobs (especially the odd ones) you've held -- focus on those things that seem to you to be important to your writing, or to this particular project. A little bit of self-depracating irony is OK -- for an author whose project is set in Italy, for instance, one might say "she has never been to Italy" -- although, on the other side, if one has been, that could add authenticity. The author may also have spent x years researching their subject, or (if it's personal experience rather than research that you've drawn from), tell your potential reader what you've done, where you've gone, and who or what inspired you to go to the place your project is set in.

To help you get started, you might just have a look at a few books on your own shelves -- what do their authors say there? There's also plenty of "helpful" advice out there; you might look here, or here, or then again here. Try to keep your bio at no more than 100 words, and it may be useful to create, at the same time, a 50 or even 25-word version, as some magazines and journals only allow that many.